That Foolish Wish
by wittylibrarian
Summary: A Goddess of Discord intervenes at a key moment in Belldandy and Keiichi's life, actually TWO key moments, threatening the love between them. Valentine's Day present! Please R&R!


That Foolish Wish  
  
DISCLAIMER: Copyright controls on 'Oh! My Goddess,' 'Ah! My Goddess,' 'Aa! Megami-sama' and any other names that apply to the manga/OAV/movie all belong to...to...where's the legal paperwork on this? Oh, here it is... okay, the guy's name is Kosuke Fujishima. Dude, damn good artwork! Dark Horse Comics apparently oversees the manga copyrights in the US, and Anime is owned by two different companies, one of them (Pioneer) I know has enough money to afford expensive lawyers.   
  
So guys, don't sue me! I'm not making any money, I swear! (I've also got a nice idea for a graphic narrative, so you Dark Horse guys give me a call, okay?...)  
  
Belldandy and Keiichi's Temple  
  
The Big Day  
  
Afternoon  
  
"I'd wish we'd stop getting visitors like this," Urd groaned, shifting her long platinum white hair out of the way so she could see her battle nemesis charging at her.  
  
A small metal ball covered with wires and piping bounced in front of the furry, oversized man-goat creature. The explosion from the Skuld Bomb ( shredded that demon into non-existence. Skuld flew past her oldest sister as she handed off another Skuld Bomb ( to her. "Well, I'd wish we'd stop getting guys shooting at us with lousy aim. The bullets keep damaging the temple and all those poor trees!"  
  
Which was true. Skuld approached another of these demons, this one carrying a Phased Plasma Rifle ( in the 40-watt range. It opened fire, a steady pulse of energy beams shooting out recklessly in an arc. Some of the bolts struck at the young Goddess, whose Self-Protection Shielding (2+) ( easily absorbed the energy, but the rest of the shots left scorch marks along the temple walls and across a helpless tree about 90 meters away. "Ahh! If I knew any expletives I'd yell them at you!" Skuld shouted, hefting her angel sword above her head, slicing downward through the rifle, shattering it into a hundred pieces.  
  
The gun's fuel cell shattered as well, the resulting explosion knocking the young goddess back into Urd, who was attempting to open a portal underneath a trio of goat demons to teleport them back to the dimensional containment field they came from. The demons screeched at the two goddesses and jumped, claws extended.  
  
"Eeeeeek!" both goddesses screamed.  
  
"Belldandy better close up that temporal cross-alignment gate in a hurry!" Urd added, punching the goat demon attacking her with a blow that could shatter steel.  
  
"KEIICHI!" Belldandy's voice echoed throughout the fourth dimension. Soldiers of a Calais fortress in 1329, and a young girl sitting alone near a fishing village at the mouth of the Amazon in 2237, were the most reliable witnesses who could confirm that fact.  
  
He was unable to answer, still unconscious from the blow he received from the Demon Goddess now dragging him through the space-time vortex. The red-haired, tatter-clothed woman scowled backwards at Belldandy, watching as the Goddess freed her angel avatar Holy Bell, stretching out the vast white wings to increase her speed.  
  
"Eris!" Belldandy's voice echoed greater now, Holy Bell's voice combined with her own. "You have no dominion here, violating this legal contract. And you're violating two laws of your Demon System Force, not including the seven laws of the Goddess System Force! AND you're dragging off my boyfriend!"  
  
Eris replied with a blast of energy at Belldandy, whose Self-Protection Shielding (6+) ( absorbed most of the force. Pieces of it floated through the space-time vortex until unleashed over the village of Yagoura, Cameroon in 1873 as a fireworks display.  
  
"Eris!" Holy Bell's wings guided Belldandy swiftly at her opponent and her affection. "Stop this! Battles in the time stream can have dangerous consequences! And stopping dragging my boyfriend! How many times do I have to say that!"  
  
"Too late!" Eris finally replied. "Even here, in the temporal vortex, you're too late!" And with that, she shoved Keiichi through a window, which looked more like the backside of a mirror...  
  
...that faced out into a college dorm room.  
  
Keiichi stirred, feeling his head where the blow had landed. Wait, what blow?...  
  
His memory came quickly. He remembered standing in the temple courtyard, holding Belldandy's hands in his, a fourth ring now on her fingers, this one a more proper ring, an expression of his desire to...  
  
He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the surroundings. Wait, what temple? How could he be thinking about a temple when he was sitting here in the dorm taking his sempai's phone calls?  
  
Keiichi stood up, looking about. Yes, he was back (?) in the dorm, his freshman dorm, left behind to take sempai Tamiya's phone calls. He absent-mindedly kicked at the phone as he turned, stepping over to the mirror, that one mirror where...where...  
  
This was wrong. Keiichi could tell somehow he was different, older. Three, no, four years older. His hair issue had gotten resolved and finally appeared manageable. It looked like he had actually gained an inch of growth so he wasn't as short as before (?). His clothes suggested he had developed a fashion sense away from the ragged t-shirt and jeans he had always worn growing up, as though there was a girlfriend in his life to...  
  
A girlfriend? Him? Wait...Yes!  
  
"Belldandy!" Keiichi pressed both palms against the mirror, shouting as though she could hear through the glass. "Belldandy!"  
  
"Oh, this won't do!" a woman's voice growled.  
  
Keiichi turned to face a red-haired woman floating about two inches off the ground. Her clothes were tattered as though swords had cut holes along every other inch of her. Black red paint, or was that blood, coated the edges of each frayed strand of cloth. Her Greek features gave her the appearance of an unshakeable scowl of darkness, of loathing and despising.  
  
"...Who is that?" Skuld asked as the woman stepped out of a storm-raging gateway onto the temple grounds.  
  
Urd scowled, her own dark features mimicking the new arrival. "Eris."  
  
Skuld was still too young a Goddess to know everybody just yet. "Who's she then?"  
  
In Urd's hands was her Goddess Battle Staff (, raised and ready to strike. "Someone you should never invite to a wedding!"  
  
"Why bother?" Eris answered, not smiling in the slightest. "I'd show up anyway."  
  
Belldandy's features became firm and resolute as she stood between Eris and Keiichi, preparing to protect her mortal boyfriend from a likely Goddess attack. "I'm afraid I'll be making very sure only those invited will be able to attend, Eris. Please go."  
  
"What, and not allow me to leave a present for one of my favorite coworkers?" Eris' scathing voice made it very clear this was not a friendly offer.  
  
"Hold on!" Skuld got her hammer ready. "She's not a Goddess, is she?"  
  
"She was," Urd snarled, stepping closer to Eris. "Lost her job. Kept getting more suspensions and recalls than I ever did. And remember that nasty email virus that got her fired?"  
  
Belldandy nodded. "The Golden Apple worm. Ygdrassil was crashed for days. I still can't believe you had sent that as a joke to Ratatosk."  
  
"Hmm, speaking of Golden Apples," Eris answered, lifting up a good-sized fruit-shaped item in her hands. She let go, letting it float before her like a gift of sorts.  
  
Belldandy sighed and smiled, doing her best to be patient and forgiving. "I'm sorry, but I know you and your history too well, Eris. I'm not accepting this gift."  
  
"Oh, it's not for you," Eris snarled, and the apple flew swiftly right at Keiichi's head.  
  
Keiichi felt the spot where the apple bruised him, and glared at the rogue Goddess floating before him. "What am I doing back here? I don't live here anymore. I got kicked out."  
  
"Oh, but that hasn't happened yet." Eris swiveled on one toe like a dancer, examining the room. "That is what I'm doing. This is my gift to you and Belldandy."  
  
"Bell?" He glanced at the mirror again. "Where is she?"  
  
"She's waiting." Eris floated to the wall where a set of phone numbers and flyers for delivery services were posted. "Like a Goddess who sticks to the rules, she's not going to interfere with the timeline until she can be certain she won't cause any damage. She's basically waiting to retrace her own footsteps."  
  
"So I've got to call her."  
  
"Hmm-mm." Eris pulled a flyer off the wall, the thumbtack flying to the floor. "Can you remember the number you dialed the first time, by the by?"  
  
Keiichi suddenly felt his stomach collapse. The number. Belldandy's phone number. The one he dialed trying to order some ramen noodles, getting the Goddess Relief Office totally by accident. By accident. He couldn't even remember the original noodle shop's number in the first place. How was he going to intentionally dial a wrong number he didn't even realize he was dialing in the first place?  
  
"You're just...trying to stop this from happening, aren't you?!" Keiichi felt the urge to strike at Eris somehow, but controlled himself, knowing one couldn't fight a Demon Goddess unarmed and powerless.  
  
"No, like I've said, this is a gift," Eris replied, innocently handing over the flyer in her hand.  
  
Cautiously, he stepped close enough to take the slip of paper from her. Just as he took it, Eris grabbed him with both arms, and Keiichi felt his body enflamed with light and energy. Within seconds, he knew he had changed, his clothes were just as they were that day, this day, when he called for noodles. He glanced at his body, feeling himself thinner, scrawny as before, and the hair flopping in front of his eyes. He had returned to a state of geekdom.  
  
"Not much of a gift," he groaned, noting inwardly that he'd probably lost that extra inch of growth too.  
  
"Shut up," Eris snarled, levitating the dorm phone up and into her arms, before shoving it hard into Keiichi's chest. "AND DIAL!!!"  
  
"Yeep!" Keiichi fell back against the wall as she pushed him, and slid right down under the mirror. He knew now history was repeating itself. He looked up, and noticed that Eris had left the room. At least this part was right too. He glanced at the flyer, noticing the numbers, wondering just where it was he had dialed wrong.  
  
He tried dialing numbers where he might have dialed the seven instead of the six. All he got were two angry businessmen who were waiting for bond prices in Hong Kong, and a witch's laundry delivery service. Then he tried it where he didn't dial the last number, but nothing happened. Then he tried about twenty other variations of the numbers, each one failing to reach the right voice, the right Goddess.  
  
Keiichi looked at the number again on the flyer. Where, he mused, did I dial it wrong? Where?  
  
And then an odd thought occurred. Maybe...maybe the number was right. Maybe he dialed it properly in the first place all those years ago. Maybe it wasn't for a ramen shop at all. Maybe he was supposed to call her...all along.  
  
That's impossible. She wouldn't intentionally set up a wrong number for anyone...for me...to dial her. Belldandy's not a devious person, Keiichi thought. But, what if?...  
  
He dialed the number. Ring. Two rings.  
  
Pick up. The voice, the right voice, on the line. "Keiichi! I'm coming!"  
  
He looked up, and smiled at the Goddess coming through the mirror, Belldandy smiling back at him. She had dressed herself as she did before, the first time (?) they had met, her in those loose, floating blue robes, much like a dancer, so poised and perfect of form. "Keiichi!" she sighed. "You're alright!"  
  
"Bell!" he stood, rising to greet her, and they hugged. After a minute, they parted slowly, letting their hands grasp the other's, Keiichi feeling the rings, no wait, the rings he had given her were gone, they had not yet been given to her. But she was here now. "Belldandy, we've got to get out of here. That Goddess is going to try something to stop us, to stop this from happening..."  
  
"Don't be absurd," that scowling voice intoned, and the couple turned to face Eris floating near the dorm room doorway. "I want this to happen."  
  
"Then why?" Belldandy stood between her nemesis and her boyfriend. "Why repeat this moment in time?"  
  
"So I can give you my wedding present," Eris snarled. "It's one of the rules I'm bound to, isn't it? One of the few ways left to me that I can express myself, and my eternal love for my fellow Goddesses."  
  
"She's a wedding demon," Belldandy whispered to Keiichi. "it's her job to ruin lives on what would be their happiest day. It's how she got her reputation and it's all that's really left to her anymore."  
  
"Why can't she just give the gift at the wedding anyway?" Keiichi asked. "Why go through the trouble of bringing us back here, to when we met?"  
  
"O ho, like this was when you met!" Eris crowed.  
  
"Eris! Do not go there! That way causes system errors!" Belldandy shouted.  
  
Keiichi knew he was confused, wanted to ask, but Belldandy seemed serious about not wanting to pursue that part of her confrontation with this demon. He knew also not to give this Eris any kind of satisfaction on that matter. But still... "You haven't answered my question, Eris!"  
  
Eris smiled for the first time, and Keiichi shuddered. "Very well. My gift is tied specifically to how you two met. All my gifts are that way, reflections of the events that were set in motion, and to their falsities and manipulations of reality that made them what they are. Like the apple I left at Thetis' wedding, caused because the Gods sought to avoid their downfall by marrying her off to a mortal so that her progeny would not be greater than they, left that apple knowing it would cause my fellow Gods to fight amongst themselves and cause their own destruction..."  
  
Her smile darkened. "I do not believe in true love, in destiny, in happy coincidence and happenstance and joyful merging of souls. Love. All trickery and nonsense and the little lies we tell each other. Ha!"  
  
"Eris!" Belldandy shouted. It was the angriest Keiichi had ever seen her.  
  
"Boy!" The Goddess Demon pointed at him. "Do you even remember what your wish was? The exact words, to the very letter?"  
  
"Of course I remember!" Keiichi shouted back. "It was to be with Belldandy forever!"  
  
Eris arched an eyebrow, and answered in Keiichi's voice, word for word. "I wish that a Goddess like you would be by my side FOREVER!!!"  
  
"Oh, that," Keiichi answered in his real voice, but with a whisper.  
  
"Oh, that, yes," Eris replied, her smile fading. "Nice little trap of a wish, wasn't it?"  
  
"No! It wasn't a trap!" Keiichi shouted. "I didn't even think it was real when it was happening!" He glanced at Belldandy, who appeared worried. "You remember, I didn't even think it was really happening, that it was a prank. It...it wasn't your fault I made that wish..."  
  
"Exactly! It was yours!" Eris clapped her hands together. "Can't you hear the guilt in his voice, the taste of that guilt in his soul?"  
  
"No, wait!..."  
  
"Enough of the pretense! You knew, you KNEW that if that wish came true you'd have a permanent girlfriend stuck to your worthless little life..."  
  
"Stop it!" Belldandy shouted.  
  
"...and you just knew it would have been her, didn't you?" Eris tried smiling again, but there seemed to be too much rage in her heart. "A Goddess like her? Like her, all sympathy and happiness and joy, so accepting, so meaningful, so PURE of HEART? Out of all the Goddesses you've met by now, you knew even now, this moment in time, that there wouldn't have been anyone else like her, Goddess or mortal, in the whole universe!"  
  
Eris snarled, "Selfish little wish, wasn't it? Keeping her all to yourself, Keiichi. You kept her all to yourself, down here in the dirt and mud and mess of humanity, for the rest of your life."  
  
Keiichi couldn't answer, because...he knew. He had known that, ever since he realized he had gotten a real wish, and that Belldandy was literally stuck with him, that they couldn't be separated by anything, no matter what the universe threw at them.   
  
And she was right. Eris was right. It was a trap, because, would Belldandy have stayed with him on her own? Of her own free will? Any other wish, she would have granted it and be gone, and that would have been that.  
  
Keiichi glanced at Belldandy, who stared back with her big wide eyes, not tearful but worried, knowing somehow what he was thinking, like she always did, knowing the guilt in his mind and his heart...  
  
"So here we are," Eris continued. "We're at the moment where you get to make your wish, boy. Only now, I give you my gift, tied to the knowledge of what your foolish wish really is all about."  
  
"No, don't," Belldandy whispered, "Wait. Don't listen to her, we have to find a way to stop her from doing this, to make sure she offers no gift to us..."  
  
"There's not much time," Eris sang, rather wickedly. "There is a time limit here. Not only do you have your dorm buddies coming back any minute now, but there's a time limit on the wish granting, isn't there Belldandy?"  
  
She nodded fitfully. "Yes. You can't take forever thinking up a wish. If you don't decide soon, I would have to hang up and...move on to the next caller. Technically, at this point in time, I'm still a fully-functioning Class One Goddess offering relief through the wish system."  
  
"Tick-tock, boy and girl," Eris added. She faded through the doorway, waving goodbye as she went.  
  
Keiichi stood close to Belldandy, whispering, "So why can't I repeat the wish I've already made?"  
  
"Because then Eris will win. Her gifts are poison," Belldandy whispered back. "Because this time around, you can't...ignore the fact that you know the consequences of your wish. You could have always excused what happened with the knowledge that you didn't believe this was real, that your wish was an accident..."  
  
"...But now I know better."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"But...don't you want to be with me? Aren't we...happy together?"  
  
"Oh, yes!" Belldandy smiled, but the smile faded. "But...there will be doubt this time. The doubt there, now, will grow from that guilt in your heart. It will sour your heart, shatter the love we have now into something smaller, lesser, weaker. It will get to be that, when we marry in the new timeline, we would no longer be in love."  
  
Keiichi placed both hands on her shoulders, staring right into her eyes. "Than what...do I wish for?..."  
  
"Ghah!" Skuld shook off about five layers of ash and goat hair that had covered her. "I need a level 3 Citrus Scented Bath. ("  
  
"Later!" Urd hurried to the phone and dialed the Home Office. There wasn't even a ring before pick-up. "Peorth here. Urd, what's going on? The network's gone haywire, Belldandy's code is in flux!"  
  
"We've got a level 40 temporal displacement," Urd answered. "Eris is behind it."  
  
"Her again?!"  
  
"We've got to hurry!" Urd shouted through the phone. "Time is not a luxury! We need a code upgrade on both Keiichi and Belldandy NOW!"  
  
Keiichi kept thinking. Maybe, maybe if I wish that Belldandy would love me...  
  
...No, that was another trap. I would be forcing her, even if I knew from the first time we've been together, this time it wouldn't be real, and I would know that it would be a lie...  
  
He stared at her, thinking. There had to be a wish, a better wish. Maybe if I wished that we hadn't traveled back in time? No, then the original wish wouldn't exist, and she'd go away in this new timeline.  
  
Belldandy leaned forward, their foreheads touching. "Think, Keiichi, for both of us. There must be a wish Eris can't curse..."  
  
And the phone rang.  
  
They both jumped. "Oh, that's right, I still need to take phone messages," Keiichi sighed. "I'll do this quickly, we don't have much time..."  
  
He picked up the phone, "This is the N..."  
  
"Listen up, there's not much time kid." The voice at the other end sounded scratchy, almost inhuman.  
  
"Who is this?"  
  
"Name? Muninn. Job? Raven messenger. Message? Listen up!"  
  
Keiichi glanced at Belldandy, who glanced back puzzled. "Okay."  
  
"Intervention mode. Code authorization 10199 dash 42. Emergency memory download. Originally classified Level 11. You're lucky, kid. They're giving you a piece of memory they took from you."  
  
"What? My memory? Of what?"  
  
Then Muninn started downloading over the phone line. And Keiichi remembered.  
  
He remembered going to the temple that day, praying for his pet dog Kota. He saw a light in the woods and investigated. And he saw her talking to a tree.  
  
They talked, and they played. For a week he came back to the temple after school to visit with her, and she was waiting. She was so sweet, even tempered, eager to witness everything and touch and taste and smell, and then the carnival came and they went, and oh, she had so much fun with him, and she loved those rings they saw at the gift booth.  
  
And I promised Belldandy I would get a ring and bring it to her the very next day! Wait! That was Belldandy...  
  
...And she wasn't there the next day. And I forgot her. I remembered the promise and then I forgot her...  
  
...No, I remembered, when she had to leave because of the bugs we were causing in reality, I remembered her again, and the ring I promised, which I finally got for her...  
  
"Why?" Keiichi whispered. He noticed he had fallen to his knees. "Why did they keep making me forget you, Belldandy?"  
  
She knelt before him. "Because the first time we really met, I wasn't supposed to be here. I wasn't supposed to be seen. But I was helping a tree that needed it, and you had seen me because you were...capable of seeing me, and I could tell you were so nice, and I was young, and I wanted to enjoy this Earth, and I did enjoy it."  
  
She sighed. "But I had to go, and you had to forget. One of the rules. They think it's better if you forget, sometimes. But it's not."  
  
Keiichi held up a slip of paper in his hand. "The flyer. You left it here."  
  
Belldandy smiled. "The night before. Tamiya's plans were already in effect, and I knew you would be left behind. So I left the number here."  
  
"And the other restaurants? The reason they were all so busy?"  
  
"Catering." She smiled. "I talked Freya into throwing a party."  
  
Keiichi laughed. Then he sighed. "How did you know what I would wish for? I could have wished for noodles. I was hungry, after all."  
  
"It didn't matter what you wished for, I got to see you again. I got to see how you were doing," Belldandy sighed in return. "But I knew, a little. That you were lonely. That if I were nice, you would have remembered how you liked me, and you might wish for me to stay, somehow..."  
  
"But not forever? Did you really want something like that?" Keiichi frowned. "What if I turned out to be a huge jerk?"  
  
"But you weren't a jerk..."  
  
"But still, it wasn't right..."  
  
"For her to trick you?" Eris' voice echoed in the room. There was no sign of her, hiding until the moment the men of the dorm hall returned. "For her to manipulate everything? To make you offer a wish you'd come to regret?"  
  
"Stop that!" Keiichi shouted. "I know the truth now! And it changes nothing!"  
  
"It changes everything!" There was a dark smile to Eris' voice. "Because once you make your wish, the rules will make sure you'll forget again! The memories you've regained are only temporary! You'll still feel guilty, and you won't even know why!!!"  
  
The buzz on the still open phone line crackled with Muninn's voice. "She's right, kid. Your memory's temporary, otherwise the bug portal problem you had last time will happen again."  
  
"So what do I do?" Keiichi spoke into the phone.  
  
Muninn growled, an odd thing for a raven to do. "Hurry up and make your wish!"  
  
Keiichi let the phone slide a little in his hand, and he glanced up at Belldandy. They were still sitting there, both of them waiting for the one thing that needed to be done...  
  
She just wanted to see me again. See that I was happy, he thought. It didn't matter what my wish was...  
  
...But she wanted me to wish for her to stay with me. Maybe it was the only way she could, since she had to leave the first time we met. Maybe that...But I won't remember this. Eris is right, I'd feel guilty again...  
  
...But as long as she was happy, just to see me again, I can wish for something else, and she could go, and she and I won't be unhappy in the future, and maybe she could be happy otherwise...  
  
Or...wait...  
  
"Belldandy!" Keiichi dropped the phone, letting it fall into his lap. He grabbed her hands into his own. "Belldandy! I have a wish!"  
  
"That would be wonderful, and I can only hope that..." Belldandy was about to state a standard Goddess reply of good fortune in wish-making, but she let it go for once. It was time to hear the wish.  
  
"Belldandy. This is my wish. This is what I should have made. The one wish I make now. I wish...  
  
"...that I will always make you, Belldandy, happy...  
  
"...for as long as I live!"  
  
Belldandy smiled. Then her forehead glowed, and her Goddess markings moved. The room swirled, much brighter and faster than Keiichi remembered it from the last time. The System Force shone about them, and throughout it all the two of them smiled. Finally, the glow subsided, and the room became still.  
  
Keiichi kept looking at Belldandy. For a moment, she closed her eyes. Then she opened them.  
  
And she smiled at Keiichi. "The wish...has been approved. Congratulations on making a fine wish selection, Keiichi." Then she sighed, and smiled even brighter than before as she leaned over to hug him. "Oh, Keiichi!"  
  
"WHAT?!" Eris' voice echoed. Everything had suddenly changed. It wasn't the wish she was waiting for. "What kind of wish is that?!"  
  
Muninn's voice came through the phone loud and clear. "It's the best kind of wish anyone ought to make. Congrats, kid, you figured it out."  
  
Eris flew into the room through the wall, seizing the phone. "Shut up, you overinflated crow! It's a lousy wish!"  
  
"No it isn't," Belldandy replied. "For you see, he wished for my happiness, and that it would be him that would keep me happy. And he has, and will always do so now."  
  
"But you could leave him now!" She pointed angrily at her Goddess nemesis. "You could leave any time you want!"  
  
"But if I leave, I would no longer be happy, as happy as I have been with Keiichi, as I wanted to be." Belldandy smiled, which was so natural for her to do. "But with his wish, it is not so much that I am bound to him as he is bound to me, to keep me happy. And yet, with that happiness, I will be with him always."  
  
"And the thing is now," Keiichi smiled at Eris as well. "Now I won't feel guilty. Even if I can't remember this, the knowledge that you give to me as your gift will make sure I will remember just enough, that by being with Belldandy she'll be happy, and that's all that will matter to me."  
  
Eris paused, thought it over, examined it, sought a weakness to their argument, to the wish that had been made. She found herself wanting, realizing somehow, perhaps, the one thing she could never have realized before, that a wish for happiness was something she as a Goddess of Discord could never break.  
  
She screamed, a Demon Goddess cry of anguish and torment that would have shattered lesser worlds. Then she threw the phone, hard, at Keiichi.  
  
Belldandy caught it just before it hit him. She held the phone to her ear. "Muninn, I do thank you for the intervention, and I do hope that there isn't a lot of damage to this four-dimensional reality."  
  
"Think nothing of it. Do me a favor. Hold up the phone." Belldandy did so, so the raven's voice could be heard by all in the room. "Eris? Got a message for you."  
  
Eris cringed. "What is it?"  
  
"It's from Ratatosk."  
  
"Well, what is it?!"  
  
Suffice to say, it wasn't pretty to hear a God use expletives like that, but it did the job as Eris screeched and covered her ears. Belldandy winced, but as the wordage wasn't aimed at her she kept her composure. Eris, however, found herself fleeing from the room, hurrying away, seeking refuse in this past before she could find her way back to her true time and dimension.  
  
Belldandy returned her attention to the phone once Muninn was finished. "I am not sure if that was appropriate, but still I thank you."  
  
"Call me back in real time," the raven answered. "We'll do lunch."  
  
Belldandy hung up. Sighing then smiling, she glanced at Keiichi. "Well. Here we are."  
  
He nodded. "Back at the beginning."  
  
"Are you ready to get thrown out again?"  
  
"Do we have to stay for that?"  
  
"Not really." Belldandy took both of his hands into hers. "We're just occupying the same space we were in. Once we leave, the aspects of ourselves relating to this timeline will stay, and all will be as before."  
  
Keiichi tilted his head a little to the left. "Not entirely like before."  
  
"Not entirely. Just enough to make it right." Belldandy stood, lifting him into the mirror where she had entered, properly, into his life. "Let's go."  
  
Keiichi looked back through the mirror, watching himself. He saw them, he and Belldandy, standing there with their hands still grasping the other's, smiling, even as the door slammed open as the dorm's motor gang stormed into the room. It was just right.  
  
"So," Belldandy noted as they flew through the temporal vortex, "are you going to remember the gift Eris left you?"  
  
"Remember what?" Keiichi suddenly wasn't too sure what was going on, only that Belldandy was taking him somewhere.  
  
"Oh. Of course." The Goddess giggled. "That was quick and painless."  
  
"What was?"  
  
"The things you're not going to be able to remember."  
  
"Oh, no, I'm pretty sure I can remember a lot."  
  
"Really?" Belldandy paused, letting the two of them float at a geographic temporal fold that, if viewed properly, could have allowed them to see the whole history of Yeehaw Junction, Florida. "What can you remember?"  
  
"This." Keiichi lifted her hand up to their line of vision, showing a ring that had re-appeared on Belldandy's finger. "Belldandy, I remember full well, and I'm going to repeat it again to make sure. Belldandy, will you marry me?"  
  
"Oh, Keiichi!" Belldandy's eyes were full of joyous tears. "Oh! This would...make me...so happy! Yes!"  
  
They kissed. In a place where time had no meaning, it was a very long kiss. Many time-sensitive humans throughout history would pause at a particular moment in their lives, aware even for a brief moment what it meant to feel absolutely everything about being in love.  
  
They parted, still smiling, and a historical moment involving the invention of the paper clip came and went without them noticing. "I will marry you, Keiichi. Let's go home."  
  
They returned to a temple courtyard covered in demon goat fur. The battle had technically just finished three seconds earlier. Urd hung up the phone, having just completed her call to Peorth, and hurried outside knowing her sister had returned. Skuld followed after her, shouting, "They're back! It's okay again!"  
  
Skuld wasn't that happy once she got out into the courtyard. She spotted her sister Belldandy standing in Keiichi's arms, kissing passionately. "Oh, great. They're moving on to the icky part of love, Urd! That is so...icky!"  
  
"Little girl," Urd grinned at her youngest sister. "I'd like to hear you say that in, oh, four or five years."  
  
"Still, I guess it means Eris didn't win, did she?"  
  
"No." Urd smiled. "Keiichi and Belldandy are getting married."  
  
"Huh." Skuld scowled. "Guess I gotta go shop for a wedding present then."  
  
THE END  
  
Author's Notes  
  
I'm writing this on the day before Valentine's. A little love letter from the heart.  
  
About last week I had watched the dvd movie of Ah! My Goddess and had become entranced by it. It's perhaps the most beautiful anime I'd ever seen. This story's been bouncing around in my head ever since and I've had to get it out of me before it caused too much damage (it's interfering with my normal fiction writing).  
  
There is a bit of a continuity goof in that I've got a Greek Goddess, Eris, messing around in the story, especially since Norse mythology is the one the OMG series sticks to. The deal is, I couldn't find a comparative Norse God/Goddess that covers Discord (except Loki, and he's too major a figure to use here). So I went with the DC / Marvel Comics concept that all mythologies are relevant and interactive, different pantheons co-existing beyond our reality. So there. If anyone knows a good Norse being of elevated power that I can substitute here, please let me know.  
  
Now, back to my novel about political corruption and dark satire, and Crumple-Horned Snorkacks fighting system bugs and... oh nuts, now there's a Luna Lovegood / Belldandy story in my head!... 


End file.
